1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a microscope digital image acquiring system composed of a microscope and an imaging instrument.
2. Background Art
As shown in FIG. 14, a microscope digital image acquiring system is composed of a microscope 83 and an imaging instrument 86. The microscope 83 is constructed by a microscope unit 81 forming an optical system and imaging an enlarged image of an object and a microscope controller 82 controlling the optical system of the microscope unit 81 to focus on the object by using an AF unit 95. The imaging instrument 86 is constructed by a camera head unit 84 that is attached to the microscope 83 and includes an imaging device (such as a CCD) for detecting the enlarged image of the object and a camera controller 85 that processes the signal detected by the imaging device to output imaging information. Each of the microscope 83 and the imaging instrument 86 is connected with an external controller such as a computer 87 which controls the microscope 83 and the imaging instrument 86 to obtain a digital image of the object. In this case, these instruments 83, 86, and 87 have power cables 92, 93, and 94, respectively, and a lot of connecting cables 88, 89, 90, and 91 connect these instruments with each other.
Processes carried out by the computer 87 to obtain a digital image from the microscope 83 are shown in FIG. 15. After supplying power in step S160, processes that the computer 87 collects instrument information of the microscope 83 in steps S161 and S162, processes that the computer 87 collects instrument information of the imaging instrument 86 in steps S163 and S164, processes that the computer 87 sends a control command to the microscope controller 82 to control the microscope unit 81 to make the optical system focus on the object on the basis of the instrument information in steps S165 through S173, and processes that the computer sends a control command to the camera controller 85 to obtain image information of the object in steps S174 and S175 are carried out with exchanging data (control command) between a lot of instruments, so that a lot of processes are carried out simultaneously.
A microscope digital image acquiring system is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-95125 in which a microcomputer carries out a lot of processes simultaneously as same as the above-described case. However, in the disclosure of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-95125, since a microcomputer in an image processor has to frequently communicate with a microscope control unit, a frame memory, and a camera control unit and carries out processes, so that it has been feared that response and operability become worse and processing speed becomes slow.